Once upon a time.  We might as well get that out of the way right now.  It really does not help at all, and if you are a stickler for accuracy, this is probably twice upon a time.  Still, there it is.  The thing is, this could be strange and new to you if you didn’t read about Eric and Tracey.  Well, hard luck.  From time to time I may do a little bit of explaining, but every story should stand on its own two feet.

You may recall that things were looking up in King Ron’s land.  The dam that Eric and Tracey had built was working just fine.  It held back the water so that the winter rains did not flood the land.  But, it had enough holes and leaks in it for water to find its way through so that there was always something flowing through the land.  And with some water coming down the river the crops did not shrivel up and there were good harvests.  Good harvests meant food for all.  There was enough to eat and a bit left over to sell.  In the same way that water trickled through the fields all year round, the trickle of money began to flow through people’s hands.  Before you knew it King Ron’s land had an economy.  You could not call it prosperous, but it was definitely on the up.  Big trouble.

History is totally unfair.  I mean, here is King Ron, flogging himself to a standstill trying to keep his country off its knees, doing whatever he needs whenever it needs doing.  Things were looking grim and then Eric turns up, does the business with the dam and things are looking cool.  You would think this would be a happy situation, but, no.  One King’s good news is another King’s next conquest.  On the whole, kings are a pretty weird bunch.  Well, that’s not strictly fair but things that they find themselves forced to do look very strange and unpleasant to those who cannot see the whole story.  One of the things that a King has to do is to keep an eye on the countries next to his.  If one of his neighbours starts getting too big, too powerful and too rich, then any King has to start worrying about what is going to happen next.  He starts asking himself, in the wee small hours, whether he has a future as a King or whether he is going to end up, at best, a marble tombstone in the cathedral of his neighbour’s latest conquest.  Which makes you wonder why kings are so keen on being kings in the first place.  Admittedly, King Ron never wanted to be a King and he always felt that he was only doing the job of looking after his country until somebody could be found who could make a really good professional job of it.  This explains why he was a good King and in the opinion of most of his subjects, a very good King indeed.

You’ll have to forgive me and I may need to check my facts, but I seem to recollect that King Mastodon held the lands to the west of King Ron’s land.  The truth is that King Ron’s land is so small it doesn’t actually appear in an Atlas.  This makes it difficult to remember exactly which side King Mastodon lived.  However, wherever he lived, big M was a problem neighbour.  Now, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt here.  Let us assume it was kind to his queen and all the little ms.  He probably stroked the cat and took the dog for a walk.  Well, look, I’m going to give him a chance.  If he makes a mess of it during the story, then I’ll make him a baddy. Until then, it’s up to him.

Big M looked at King Ron’s land and began to wonder.  The Mastodon’s were not renowned as mighty thinkers and the significance of the dam on the river in King Ron’s land was totally lost on big M.  All he could see was the faint glitter of gold beginning to appear more regularly in association with King Ron’s subjects.  There are two possibilities here but the effect is the same.  Maybe big M worried that if his neighbour became powerful, he would become a little m. Maybe he just wanted to add the gold to his own pile.  The result was the same: he began to think about invading King Ron’s land.  Well, “think” is an awfully big word for big M but something between his ears and behind his extraordinarily thick forehead began to wriggle and he felt uncomfortable.  This did not happen often to big M. The space inside his head was a sort of impenetrable Amazon rainforest for most thoughts.  They knew when they were beaten and kept well clear.  The upshot of this was that big M felt uncomfortable and when he felt uncomfortable his usual solution was to arrange was someone or something to be soundly bashed.  In this case, the obvious bashee would be King Ron’s land.

Well, that’s enough of the politics.  It really is rather boring.  The trouble with politics is that it doesn’t often tell you what is going to happen next.  You tend to end up with next door’s army trampling through your garden and the students of politics saying, “I could have told you that would happen.”  It really does not help things a lot.  However, if you ask them what is going to happen next, they will suddenly be very busy on other projects and will promise to get back to you right away.  And it’s no use trying to work out what is going to happen next.  Because nine times out of ten, even those doing the politicking have no idea of what they are going to do anyway.

In a nutshell, storm clouds are gathering over King Ron’s land.  Which, when you think about it, is odd.  Because it was the storm clouds gathering, the dam, the subsequent irrigation and ensuing prosperity which put King Ron’s land in a position where these other storm clouds could start gathering over the border with King mastodon’s land.  Which just goes to show.  You can’t trust life.